The present invention relates to the field of fishing accessories and, more particularly, to apparatus for assisting in winding fishing line onto fishing reels.
A common problem for fishing enthusiasts is the process of winding fishing line onto a fishing reel. Traditionally this has required two people--one to hold a spool of replacement line and to attempt to maintain constant tension on the line, and another to reel in the new line. This process proved unsatisfactory due to the need for assistance whenever a new line had to be wound, and the difficulty in maintaining a constant tension on the line during rewinding.
Accordingly, a number of devices were developed which permitted unassisted rewinding of certain fishing reels. These have taken the form of non-portable bench top devices, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,360,172, and portable devices to be mounted on fishing poles, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,848,778, 3,506,213, 3,973,741, and 4,034,930. Although each of the presently known devices may function reasonably well, they are each deficient in one or more respects.
The most glaring problem with the portable devices is their limited field of use. Fishing line stored on a spool tends to develop a set bias. If a reel is wound in a direction different from this bias, the line will tend to kink and tangle. Each of the portable devices disclosed in the above patents has a set orientation in which it holds the spool of line. Accordingly, these devices can properly feed only one type of reel without encountering tangling problems (i.e. spinning reels receive line around a reel with an axis parallel to the rod, casting reels receive line around a reel with an axis perpendicular to the rod). This is because a reel receiving line in the orientation established by the spool must be identically aligned with the spool during transfer.
This problem is addressed and solved in U.S. Pat. No. 4,360,172 by changing the orientation of the spool to correspond with the orientation of the reel. However, that device is not portable and must be permanently mounted. Thus, it lacks the convenience of the portable devices.
Other drawbacks with certain of the portable devices are that some are unduly bulky and/or complicated, some are not universally adaptable to all forms of fishing poles, and some provide little or no control over the degree of tension applied to the spool.
In light of the foregoing, it is a primary object of the present invention to create a portable fishing line winding device which can be adapted to feed properly all forms of fishing reels.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a portable fishing line winding device which is of simple construction and stores readily in a tackle box, may be readily used on all forms of fishing poles, and provides straightforward means to adjust the tension on the fishing line.